Auld Lang Syne
by Wolf's Edge
Summary: After the events in Puerto Rico the Diviner accidentally transports Skye, Ward, and Coulson 26 years into the future. Now they have to work together with their future selves to try and find a way home, provided they don't kill each other in the process. Skye and Ward learn the hard way that they might just have a chance even if they can't see it. Post 2x10.
1. To Good Friends and Second Chances

**Auld Lang Syne**

**One:** "To Good Friends and Second Chances"

"Does that feel any better?" Skye asked. She stood in front of Grant, who was leaning against the edge of his desk. With two fingers from each hand, she tugged firmly on his collar, smoothing out the creases in his bow-tie as she went.

His eyebrows knitted together. "Explain to me why I agreed to this again?"

She dropped her hands, exasperated.

"I don't do speeches," he said in one long, drawn-out breath.

"Really, Robot? I never would have guessed." She swatted at the hand that had drifted up to tug at his bow-tie. "You nervous?"

He shot her a lethal look. "I don't get nervous."

Skye rolled her eyes. "Let me guess, cause you're Agent Grant Ward and you can jump out of a plane at thirty thousand feet under heavy fire all while shooting the legs off a flea from five hundred yards away?"

"That's Director Grant Ward to you." He smirked, shifting against the desk. "And you have to put your hands on your hips when you say it." He bent to demonstrate.

Shaking her head in amusement she leaned forward to press her lips against his. "I'm proud of you, you know?" She whispered into the juncture of his neck.

"Yeah?" He mumbled, pulling himself back up to his full height to wrap his arms around her middle. His fingers ghosted across the fabric of her strapless dress, a claret silk that flared along her ankles.

"Yeah." She agreed.

"And you know what else?"

"Mmm?"

"You're gonna be a great S.H.I.E.L.D. Director."

He let out a self depreciating snort and set his gaze on one of the far shelves that still housed a dusty conglomeration of Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. memorabilia—Avengers era mostly. "Least I can do after…"

"We're not going to go there, Grant." Skye cut him off. "Coulson forgave you a long time ago—we all did." She looked at him thoughtfully, "Besides, New Years Eve is a time for new beginnings."

"And I've had a lot of em'," he mumbled, a bitter edge to his voice.

"So have I," she shrugged, watching him in the dull half light of his new office. "And we're both still here."

With reluctance, he slowly raised his eyes up and watching her closely with a look that she wasn't quite sure how to interpret, tipped her head back to kiss the hollow of her throat. She pressed into his weight, her fingers finding their way to the nape of his neck to scratch him with her nails. He wasn't vain by any means, but she could tell that the wisps of grey hair arcing across his temples were a sore point for him and she loved him all the more because of it. She loved that he had held on long enough that she could tease him when he couldn't read the print on the menu at their favourite restaurant, or when he slept through his 5AM workout. They had gone through hell and back together and yet they were still here—they had made it. She met his mouth and a groan reverberated through his throat as she playfully nipped at his lips. They were so into one another that they didn't hear the door creak on its hinges.

"Hey, they're all waiting for you downstairs, what's the hold up…ack!" Dr. Alexander Phillip Ward covered his eyes and made a mock gagging gesture.

"Okay, did not need to see that," he huffed, glancing between his two parents.

Skye rolled her eyes and motioned him inside. "Your father's getting cold feet," she explained.

"Really Dad?" he grinned, surveying the mess of torn legal pad pages cluttering the desk as he leaned against the doorjamb. "But, you're Agent Grant Ward and—"

"I'd stop there unless you want my first task as Director to be re-assigning you to our Alaskan office?" Grant warned, trying his best to sound annoyed but not succeeding very well. Instead he shook his head and sighed, "Good to see you made it back in one piece, kiddo."

Alex's grin widened into a toothy smile as he slipped out of his jacket and set in on the arm of the overstuffed leather couch at the far end of the office. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the Space Needle winking at him through the large bay windows that overlooked downtown Seattle. It was a beautiful night, a little colder than seasonal, but bright enough to blur the sharp edges of the city below.

"It was an in-and-out," he explained, shifting his attention back towards Grant and Skye. "The 0-8-4 was definitely alien, but other than that we don't know much about it. Avery brought it down to the lab. Fitz-Simmons are working up the biometrics now."

"Well, you haven't missed much," Skye laughed. "Other than watching Dad wear a hole in the carpet."

Grant shot her an annoyed look, his lips pursed in a tight frown. "Ya done now?" He grumbled.

"And he's in one of his moods again," she said wryly, paying no attention to the glare he shot her way. Instead, she watched Alex flit through a stack of file folders on the other side of the desk.

"What's all this?" Alex picked at one of the coffee-stained leaflets. The paper was well worn and threatened to disintegrate between his finger tips.

"Old S.H.I.E.L.D. files mostly. Coulson rescued them from The Playground. Peggy Carter era mostly, there are boxes of the stuff that no one's gotten around to going through. Pretty sure AC has taken it on as retirement project." Skye explained.

"Like he'll ever actually retire," Alex chuckled. "I still can't believe May managed to drag him off to Fiji."

"I don't think Coulson knows what the word 'vacation' even means. A little R and R will do him some good." Skye agreed, watching as Alex checked his digital and turned his head toward his father.

"You'd better hurry, old man, or it'll be the New Year before you get that speech written." He had the sense to slip outside the door before Grant could launch one of the wadded up pieces of paper at him.

"Can you believe that? He called me old!" Grant growled in mock offense.

Skye smirked at him. "You can still keep up," she assured.

* * *

><p>The atrium of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base 'The Apex' was a wide open gathering space sheathed in glass windows. It acted as a central point between the departments of Field Operations, Logistics, Administration, and Communications. For the holiday season it was decked out with a large Christmas tree that seemed to stretch towards the vaulted ceilings. Speakers and a makeshift stage had been rigged up around it while caterers paced the length of the room serving hors d'oeuvres and bubbly champagne.<p>

"You really wanna go fer round two, Doc Twinkle-toes?" Special Agent James Callen teased over the thrumming pulse of the band. His lips curved steadily upward, flashing a dimpled grin as the man in front of him struggled to adjust his footing in time with the music.

Alex jerked his head up, squinting as the beat changed and the lights dimmed. Half an hour to midnight and the smell of booze and thick perfume hung heavy in the air. He frowned as though just catching on to the jeer.

"You think I can't dance?" He breathed letting his tongue scrape along his dry lips.

"If ya can, ya sure as hell haven't managed it yet." Jay smirked. His head was tilted in such a way that the flush of perhaps one too many Amstel Light's crept up the side of his neck. The effect wasn't enough to make his words stick together, but his hands shook slightly as he wobbled toward the other man with his best Cheshire cat grin.

"Well, at least I'm doing better than that guy." Alex retorted, pointing into the heart of the dance floor where one of the systems analysts was trying to coerce the gathering crowd into doing the Macarena.

"Damn." Jay shook his scruffy blonde hair out of his eyes and snorted loudly. "Thought that went out with the Stone Age."

Alex nodded appreciatively as he tugged at the collar of his tuxedo, undoing the bow tie so that it hung limply across his neck. He was hot and itchy enough as it was.

"So, where's your girl?" Jay changed the subject, noticing for the first time that the other man, like himself, was alone.

"Oh, she went to check up on MacKenzie, she's been hounding the babysitter all night." He rolled his eyes and accepted a tall glass of Laurent-Perrier from a server as they passed.

"You know how she is."

"Excuse me. Can I get everyone's attention please?" Grant's voice cut through the air as the music dulled.

"I won't keep you long," he assured. "As you know, New Years Eve has always been Coulson's thing, but he and May are currently celebrating retirement on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific." The room darkened and a life-sized photograph of Coulson clad in a red and blue Hawaiian shirt materialized behind him.

"And he's been sending us regular updates," he continued. The image flicked, revealing Coulson and May sharing a glass of wine at a seaside restaurant, Coulson posing with some type of large fish, and a photo of the pair donning Santa hats and holding a sign that read 'Wish You Were Here!' against a tropical sunset.

"May sent along a note saying that he didn't actually catch the fish himself," Grant reported, earning a chuckle from the beaming crowd. He was doing his best to ignore the dry rasp that was tickling the back of his throat. It was quelled slightly by Skye's reassuring glance.

"I know I haven't been Director very long, but—" he paused, licking his lips. "…But I guess it's my turn to continue his tradition."

He took a deep, slow breath and adjusted the glasses sliding low on the bridge of his nose.

"Fresh starts happen every year. Just set your watch to January and bring on the New Years resolutions. They're a chance to start fresh, to set your past behind you and put the problems of last year to bed. But at the end of the day who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins? Because sometimes we're our own worst enemy and letting go of our past is half the battle. I know Coulson was a big fan of second chances, he often said that if you get to someone early enough you can save them from themselves and sometimes I wonder if that could have been true for me."

Grant swallowed hard and stared at the slip of paper clutched between as finger tips. After a moment he balled it in fist and lifted his head to peer out at his audience.

"As many of you know, when I joined Coulson's team I was a screw up. My job was simply to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. and report back to my S.O. and Hydra operative John Garrett. I met Garrett when I was just 15. He pulled me out of my own personal hell and threw me into another one. I was loyal to him. I didn't know how to think for myself and in doing so I hurt everyone I had grown to care about."

His tone held an edge to it that seemed to resonate into dead silence. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

He shook his head and offered a small, sad smile. "But at some point you have to learn to make your own decisions, you have to figure out who you are and learn that compartmentalization doesn't keep other people out, it fences you in. I'm standing here today because the people I'm proud to call my family gave me more fresh starts and second chances than I ever deserved. I learned that life is short. That life is messy. And at the end of the day acknowledging that we're still standing is reason enough to celebrate."

He reached for a flute of champagne resting on a near by speaker. "To good friends and second chances."

The applause was deafening and Grant kept his gaze toward his shoes as the room seemed to rumbled around him. He felling more off-kilter than he ever had running covert operations, but Skye was there, somehow weaving herself into his arms before he really noticed.

"That OK?" he croaked, peering down at her, his arms draping across her shoulders. She tilted her head upward to kiss him fully on the lips.

Across the room, Alex beamed proudly at his father. Offering the man an enthusiastic thumbs-up that he might have seen if he wasn't so preoccupied with his mom. He yawned, sipping at the bubbly drink in his hand and thoroughly enjoying the way the strong liquid made his lips pucker. The alcohol made him feel sated and content as he made his rounds across the atrium, admiring the decor and making small talk with those he knew. He sighed deeply, letting his eyes drift shut for just a moment in order to allow the sensation of mild inebriation washed over him.

Tomorrow, the most strenuous thing he would have to do was cook a turkey with his wife and spend some quality time with his family. The thought made his heart swell. The clicking of heels shook him from his tired reverie. He turned his head, glancing over his shoulder.

"Hey." His face lit up, eyes wandering over the sleek black cocktail dress she had hurriedly slipped into.

"He's been going nuts without you, you know."

Agent Avery Melinda Ward rolled her eyes and regarded her brother with a serious, considering look. Her curly brown hair appeared slightly out of place from being pinned up since mid-morning, she swat at it with her left hand, doing her best to arrange the stray curls behind her ears.

"Sorry, got tied up in the lab. The other half of the science twins was trying to match the biospec patterns from the 0-8-4 against our ExDat base. Who'd you bribe to get the night off anyway?"

"Well, you missed one helluva speech from Dad and it's called seniority." He smiled. "I put in for it last January first after I worked straight through Christmas and New Years. Remember Operation Polaris?"

Avery nodded.

"Mmm, Ellie was not a happy camper. I logged over 200 OR hours picking shrapnel out of half the field-ops team."

"I remember that. Didn't she make you sleep in the den for a week?" She smiled at him, but wasn't entirely focused on the conversation, her brown eyes drifted toward the heart of the crowd.

"More like a month." Alex groaned and leaned over to give her a quick hug in greeting.

"I had a hard enough time explaining to Mac why Daddy was 'playing camp out' in the basement."

His eyes caught what she was looking for, "Jay's over by the bar," he explained knowingly.

"And don't worry, I think he might still be sober enough to get a decent dance out of."

"He'd better," Avery smirked before she sauntered off in Jay's direction.

The music dulled for a moment as Grant announced that it was 'three minutes to midnight' and he cued the band to take them in to one last song before the countdown.

Alex felt a slender hand slip into his. Their fingers interlocked and he spun around, pulling her against him in such that a way that he could slip his arms around her waist and rest his head on her shoulder.

"Did I miss anything?" Her accent was a pleasant mix of proper English with just a hint of Scottish lilt.

"Just Avery wondering if Jay's gonna actually remember New Years in the morning," he chuckled. "How's our girl doing?"

Dr. Ellie Fitz-Simmons sighed, settling into her husband's embrace. "Fell asleep about an hour ago. Insisted on trying to wait up to 'see the New Year'."

Her deep purple evening gown flowed down over her stilettos as Alex guided her toward the dance floor. She could feel him grin into the crook of her neck.

"See the New Year huh? I used to try to do that when I was her age. Never quite made it until I was eight."

"What did you see?" Ellie reached up to re-tie his bow-tie.

He ran his hand under the stubbled ridge of his jaw thoughtfully. "Not a damn thing. Mom and Dad used to go out so I stayed up half the night watching old James Bond movies with Coulson and May. My neighbours weren't really all that in to fireworks so I didn't even get to see that much. After that I started considering the whole thing a big waste of time. Nothing special about it in the slightest."

"Of course there is," she corrected him, letting him tuck a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear. "It marks the dawn of something new and exciting. Like your Dad said, 'good friends and second chances'. Auld Lang Syne."

"And turkey with a hyperactive six year old?" He asked playfully.

"That too," she agreed. "Especially when her Dad doesn't have to spend here or at the hospital."

"Not even turning on my phone," he agreed. "So you have no worries about that."

"Hey Doc, gonna ramp it up a bit or what?" Jay interrupted the slow rhythm their bodies had created with the music, emitting an exuberant shout as he bobbed his head.

"You're bordering on being worse than Macarena guy, Callen. Maybe you should find him some coffee, Sis?" Alex did his best to suppress a grin as he craned his neck toward her.

Avery, meanwhile, had removed her phone from her purse and proceeded to film the odd, uncoordinated movements Jay was making to the slow music.

"I could, but I'd rather give him something to watch at dinner tomorrow night."

"Oh honestly, he'd better keep it G rated," Ellie interjected, snickering. "Wow, I've never seen him this..."

"Drunk?" Alex offered bluntly. "Neither have I. All the better to rub it in later. Dad will have some real fun with this. If he doesn't kill him outright that is." It was no secret that the now Director Grant Ward was not Agent James Callen's number one fan, particularly when it came to dating his daughter.

"Alright, everyone." Grant cut in over the music which was dying fast. "Looks like we're on our last 30 seconds of 2039!" A hologram lit up behind him flashing a huge 30 in thick black script.

29...28...27...

"Guess this is it." Alex glanced out the window. It was a beautiful, clear night. Hopefully there would be fireworks.

"Getting all excited for 'nothing special' again?" Ellie teased.

...16...15...14...

"Oh I'm excited for something," he spoke in a way that made his eyes twinkle.

...12...11...10...

"And what might that be, Dr. Ward?" She smirked.

The numbers on the screen turned to red.

...9...8...7...

"You still with me, Jay?" Avery chided him as she settled into his unsuspecting arms.

...6...5...4...

"Missed you," Jay admitted with a goofy drunken grin. Somehow she knew his words meant far more than he was letting on.

...3...2...1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The band burst into a course of Auld Lang Syne, fireworks cracked in the distance and a brilliant white flash filled the whole of the atrium. The surge was enough to cut the power and suddenly everything was happening at once. The music died, someone cried out, someone else reset the breaker and the room was bathed in caustic fluorescent light.

"What the..." Alex blinked pulling out of the kiss he was sharing with Ellie. "Was that lightening?"

"I don't know, but it tripped the power." Avery said, striding up to them with Jay in tow.

"You did say that nothing ever exciting..." Ellie started.

"Not exactly what I had in mind," he cut her off. "Even as a kid."

"Help! Bloody hell, I need help!" A voice hollered in the distance. That was easy enough, there was literally a room full of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s finest standing right there, but everyone was so preoccupied that Alex was the only one who was paying enough attention to notice.

He glanced toward the laboratory block.

"That Elliot?" He rasped, watching Ellie's features sink into a frown.

"He never left the lab," she explained.

Alex took off at a sprint toward the corridor on the far side of the room with Jay, Avery, and Ellie tailing him.

"What's going on?" He asked, squinting as he emerged into the brightly light laboratory. The harsh fluorescent lights reflected against the slate tiles, momentarily blinding him as he struggled to get his bearings. He drew in several shallow breaths feeling winded and a little drunk, but he forced himself to focus on Dr. Elliot Fitz-Simmons who had pressed himself up against the doorway.

"I was running the biospec and it just…it exploded," his accent made his words sound thick and heavy and he pointed to the metal case where the 0-8-4 had been. Alex could picture it in his minds eye, a long, thin obelisk that he had watched Avery pack into an isolation case earlier that day. They had assumed it relatively benign.

"Then…they appeared." Elliot continued, gaping. Alex followed his shaking fingers, not noticing the splatter of blood on his pressed oxford shirt. The stain on the floor however, was impossible to miss.

His tongue caught in his throat as he took a hesitant step forward, eyebrows knitting together in disbelief. It was impossible, but there it was, three bodies tossed in an undignified heap in the middle of the floor.

"They just...appeared...out of..." Elliot was babbling again, his bottom lip trembling in such a way that it threatened to form a permanent crease across his cheeks.

"Whoa!" Avery, who had remained silent up to this point did a double take. "How the hell does that happen?"

"Hey, it's alright. I..." Alex's mouth closed and he glanced at the bodies again. Was it really? People didn't usually just pop out of thin air, even in this line of work. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the scene in front of him.

"Mom? Dad?" He gasped, shuffling close enough to hook what seemed to be the spitting image of his father by his shoulders and pull him onto his back. Alex bit his lip, feeling the slick of blood slide against his palms as he patted the other man down.

"I've got blood," he stammered, prodding the other man's ribs and noticing for the first time how young he looked.

"Three GSWs, to his right flank. Two impeded with one potentially lodged in his thoracic cavity. Breathing is shallow and he is unconscious, but stable." He crouched over Ward, thankful that his body moved on its own accord without too much instruction from his brain, which was still deadened with shock.

"Coulson's here too and with more hair than I ever remember him having. Oh dear, he looks pretty banged up." Ellie commented from where she and Avery were huddled.

"Same goes for Mom." Avery said, tapping Skye gently on the cheek. "She seems OK, but she's out."

Alex exhaled loudly and shook his head. "I don't know what the hell is going on, but we're gonna have to do something about it. Elliot, can you grab a trauma kit from the med bay? Avery, better go get Dad."

He watched them leave with a puzzled expression that didn't seem to leave his face as he turned back to his wife, glancing briefly at the other two bodies that still lay crumpled at his side.

It occurred to him at that moment that this night could not possibly get any stranger.

* * *

><p>Alright, so that's it for the first chapter.<p>

**Poll: What would you like to see happen?**

a. Skye having a heart to heart with future Grant

b. Skye having a heart to heart with future Skye

c. Director Coulson bonding with Director Ward

d. A disoriented Skye taking her anger/powers out on future Grant and Alex when she confuses them for present Ward

e. Future Skye/Grant trying to explain things to their past selves

Any ideas/scenes you would like to see?

**Reviews = Updates :)**


	2. Aftershocks

**Auld Lang Syne**

**Two: **Aftershocks

The silence seemed to stretch out forever. All three of them appeared to be waiting for someone else to speak first. It was Alex who finally broke it, a harsh, angry explicative slipping from his lips before he could reign it back in.

"Dammit! I've got another bleeder," He ground out. His blood soaked fingers had located a fourth bullet wound that was likely penetrating into Ward's mediastinum.

"How bad?" Ellie asked, glancing up from where she was folding Jay's suit jacket into a pillow for Coulson's head.

"Dunno," he muttered.

"Grant?" Alex pressed against his sternum with his knuckled fist. Ward moaned in pain as he rotated it slightly, rocking it back and forth on the flat plane of his chest to try and rouse him. He hadn't looked at the others yet, but he prayed to god they weren't in as bad a shape as he was. There was blood everywhere.

"Come on," he breathed, feeling the man's fingers jump against the hand that was trying to take his pulse. He bit his lip and pinched the large muscle curving into his shoulder blade, electing a louder yelp of protest. At least he was responsive to pain.

"Okay. That's good. You're gonna be okay." Alex assured, doubting he was actually alert enough to comprehend was happening. He kept talking to Ward anyway, stopping only long enough to nod at Elliot when he came stumbling back into the room with the biggest trauma kit he could find.

"Pass me the scissors and pull out as many pressure dressings and ab-pads as you can find."

Elliot shakily complied, doing his best to focus his attention anywhere but on the pool of blood at Alex's knees. "I never liked biology ya know?" He admitted sheepishly.

"Yeah, we pretty much established that fact when you fainted during Dr. Navidson's advanced physiology class." Ellie chided him.

"Oh, that was one time and it didn't help that you _insisted_ on signing us up to help with those cadaver dissections! Who does that?"

"It was in the name of science!" Ellie countered, sounding taken aback.

"Surely a better use of time than your paper on the applications of the Wick Rotation on Fourier transformations in Euclidean quantum field theory. My word, applying imaginary numbers. Honestly, Elliot?"

"Of course they're imaginary! That's the point of the transformation!" Elliot hissed incredulously.

"Okay, okay." Jay groused from where he was trying to help Ellie with Coulson. "How bout you two eggheads settle this little intellectual pissing match over a game of Dungeons and Dragons a little later on…hmmm?"

Alex tuned them out. Ward was bleeding internally; he grimily noted the mottled bruising pattern stretching across his abdomen as he cut away his blood-soaked shirt, exposing him from neck to waist. His cracked ribs offered no resistance as he ran his hands down his right side, palpating his abdomen and frowning as the man's fingers curled. He gently slid his hands lower to check his reflexes when something crashed into him―hard.

"Doc, heads up!" Jay called a little too late.

"Fitz, get away from him!" Skye screamed. Awake and wide-eyed she knocked Alex headlong onto the hard tile using the full force of her body. Her nostrils flared, the raw force of the blow making her gasp and drive her fist deeper into Alex's stomach in recoil. He winced feeling his throat constrict from the intensity of the pain.

"Alex!" Someone cried and the next thing Alex knew Skye was being pulled off his chest by his father who was grunting and trying to wrap his hands around her middle. Alex briefly locked eyes with Avery who shrugged helplessly.

"Find out who's on call and get a gurney." He gestured to Ward's unconscious form and took a stuttering breath as he sat up.

"Skye, you need to calm down." Grant said loudly, keeping an even tone. Jay was hovering at his shoulder, but he shook his head fiercely to deter the young agent from approaching.

"Get the hell away from me!" Skye spat at him. Her gaze shifted to where Ellie sat with Coulson.

"Simmons, get Coulson out of the temple," she pleaded and thrashed against him in a motion of pure fury, doing everything she could to evade the solid form that was forcing her back until they collided with a wall. Grant used his full weight to pin her, jerking his head to the side as she tried to crash into him.

"Skye," he tried again, dodging another headbutt. The fury in her eyes was inconsolable. In an instant something bubbled up inside her and the next thing that Grant knew there was a loud crack and the glass that had previously been lab equipment was spraying everywhere as the ground beneath them quivered.

"Dammit, Skye." He winced, watching the others duck for cover.

"This is dangerous, you'll hurt them," he pleaded, trying to make her see reason, but she lashed out at him again, knocking his glasses off the bridge of his nose. The room rattled around them.

"You. Need. To. Calm. Down." He emphasized in his most threatening authoritative voice. "I know you don't want anyone to get hurt."

"You're a traitor, Ward!" Skye said darkly, fixing him with a look of pure hatred. "You betrayed all of us." Her fingers clutched the front of his dress-shirt digging in hard enough to draw blood with her nails.

Her heart was beating far too fast, she was struggling and everything was fuzzy as though her brain could not work through what was going on. She just needed to get past him, to get the others out, but where was Trip? He was with her in the cave, but then…oh no.

"Trip." She let out a mournful whimper, in realization, that almost sounded inhuman. It startled Grant and he eased off of her slightly.

"I killed him," she choked.

"Alright," he breathed. The floor didn't feel like it was shaking quite so much. "It's gonna be alright," he whispered softly. They were against the wall, pressed into one another and she was trembling. The long windows on the far end of lab were in a million pieces around them, exposing them to the cool January night air.

Fireworks cracked in the distance resulting in a high pitched screech as red and gold sparks zigzagged past the exposed gap before bursting with a loud pop, exploding into whirls of brilliant colour. Variations of blues and greens and purples, yellows, oranges, and silver all illuminating the skyline in a subdued glow.

The more pronounced the sounds became the more Skye shook. To her it may as well have been been the sound of gunshots…over and over as she watched him fall in her mind's eye. Over and over that astonished look he fixed her with burned straight through to her bones.

"And I shot you," she stammered dumfounded as though noticing Grant for the first time. One of the hands that had been bald up in his shirt shakily slid to his right side, hovering over the scar tissue that lay underneath.

"It's alright, Skye." He murmured softly. "I forgive you."

"No." Skye moaned as her head dropped woozily to his shoulder. "It's my fault. I'm a monster," she slurred. Then, something gave way and she was limp, a dead weight against his chest. Grant blinked, frowning as he looked up.

"Someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?" A much older Skye lowered her FREEZER gun with a scowl.

"Time travel, apparently." Grant gave her an odd look as he lifted her unconscious counterpart bridal style.

"Did you really have to be so hard on yourself?" He huffed.

Skye raised an eyebrow at him and looked around the lab with a 'that's why' gesture. "What's happening?"

"You and Dad have a bit of a domestic I should know about?" Alex interrupted as he brushed shards of glass from his dress pants. He motioned for Jay to continue to hold pressure on Ward's side and shifted to check on Coulson.

Skye paled when she noticed the younger Ward's prone form on the ground. She looked to her husband. "We time traveled?" She croaked, feeling the gravity of the situation start to sink in.

"He needs surgery," Alex started to explain but stopped talking at the sight of the two med techs wheeling a stretcher in through the entrance way. The looked around a little bewildered, but knew better than to ask questions.

"Hey, Dr. Ward. What have ya got for us?" The older of the two waved.

Alex tilted his head in recognition. "Good to see you, Mike. Four GSWs to the chest, responsive to pain only with definite internal bleeding and potential for respiratory collapse. Get him collared up on a spinal and started on 2mg Ativan along with oxygen by BVM at a flow rate of 15 LPM to try and get his O2 saturation up."

Mike, a slightly balding, portly man nodded, while Alex helped hook up a small, pocket-sized monitor to his chest.

"Who's the doc on call?" Alex asked as they worked.

"Rowan, but she's a few hours out. It being New Years Eve and all," the tech explained. Alex sighed and turned back to the others.

"I'm gonna have to scrub in. You good here?"

"Go." Skye urged him, the colour draining from her face. She waited until they had left the lab before she turned to her husband.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered brokenly.

"Don't be." Grant sighed and shrugged. "I'm gonna be okay, hell, I have to be okay in order for us to be having this conversation. Now, can someone please brief me on what the hell has been going on around here?"

"The 0-8-4 exploded—" Elliot attempted to explain, but inadvertently caught sight of the blood on Jay's hands and froze.

"Hey, easy there Bookworm, we don't need you going down too." The blonde haired man chided, earning a harsh glare from his Commanding Officer.

"You got something useful to say, Agent Callen?"

"No sir."

"Good." He grunted. Grant shifted Skye's counterpart in his arms and turned back to Elliot. "Let's try it again. What happened here tonight, Dr. Fitz-Simmons?"

Elliot swallowed hard and shook his head. "I was running biological spectrographic analysis on the 0-8-4 and cross-referencing it with ExDat. The molecular extinction coefficient readings were off the charts. I…" he hesitated, blushing slightly.

"Go ahead, Elliot." Skye urged him on.

"I was streaming the Dr. Who New Years special and went to make some popcorn when it exploded," he mumbled.

Grant frowned and glanced at his watch. "Fitz-Simmons, I know its late, but are you two up for manning the lab? We need to get to the bottom of this," he gestured to Coulson's prone form. "And fast."

* * *

><p>When Coulson opened his eyes he found himself staring at a Christmas tree that was almost as wide as it was tall. It was decorated with ornaments and strung with an array of multicoloured lights that sparkled in the dimly lit room. A generous string of silver garland weaved in and out the branches, refracting specs of glimmering light onto the carpet below. There was a pile of opened presents at its base. He registered the image groggily, as though viewing it through a thick fog that swirled at the very edge of his senses.<p>

He shut his eyes again, trying to make sense of his surroundings as a bolt of sharp, hot pain sliced through his skull. He groaned and rolled onto his stomach, burying his head in an over-stuffed pillow. The smell of freshly cut evergreen seemed to linger in his nostrils, reminding him that something wasn't quite right. He couldn't place the room or the tree with anything in recent memory. Perhaps he was having a very lucid dream? But why wasn't he in bed? He could tell by the cushions digging into his ribs that he was on a couch. He must have drifted off at some point because God he was stiff. Every muscle in his back and chest seemed to pulse in unison with his throbbing head. Somewhere off in the distance he could hear the sound of a fireplace crackling a soothing melody that lulled him back into a drowsy half doze. He had just begun to relax, feeling the heaviness of sleep insinuate itself into his limbs, when he felt the couch cushions sink. His eyes popped open and he rolled his head so that only his right cheek was flush with the pillow. The Christmas scene was still in front of him glittering in its full glory but— he blinked, his eyes fixating on a pig-tailed blonde head peeking over the armrest by his feet. It was a little girl, six, maybe seven as far as he could tell.

"Hi!" She squeaked and waddled over to him with a battered looking stuffed monkey tucked under her arm.

"You slept a loooong time," she said, sounding impressed. "It got dark and then got light again."

Coulson stared at her blearily, frowning when the little girl didn't dissolve back into his subconscious. Instead she she shuffled closer and examined him with an innocent curiosity.

"Are you gonna sleep some more? My Daddy said you might cause you got hurt."

"What?" He rasped. His voice sounded creaky and weak in his ears. Stiffly, he turned and pushed himself up with his elbows. As he did so, the heavy polyester quilt that was tangled around his legs fell away from his torso, revealing a black cotton t-shirt and plaid pyjama pants that he was sure he didn't own.

Coulson frowned at his appearance, the t-shirt was standard S.H.I.E.L.D. issue, but something was subtilely different about it. The bird was larger, fiercer, with wings that erupted into tendrils of flame as they coursed around the outer margins of the insignia.

"Dad says that's called a phoenix." The little girl told him, shaking him out of his reverie.

"What's your name?" She added as an afterthought, she was close enough to balance on the edge of the couch. The tail of her plush monkey brushed against the back of his hand.

"Phil," he said softly, his eyebrows furrowing.

She nodded at this. "Like Philip?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "Like Philip."

Coulson took a long, deep breath as his brain desperately tried to comprehend what was happening. His senses didn't seem to be matching up with the rational part of his mind and the whirlwind of thoughts and nonsensical images left him feeling sluggish and dazed.

"Mommy and Daddy had to work so I get to stay with Grandma and Grandpa." The little girl beamed up at him. "And Grandpa's making pancakes."

As if on cue, a man's voice called from somewhere close. "MacKenzie? Where did you run off to, Little Duck?"

"Look, Grandpa" she called out, her eyes still on Coulson. "This is Phil, like Phillip, but not." She explained proudly to the middle aged man who entered the room. He nodded once, but his expression tightened when he noticed that Coulson was half-sitting up and staring at him with a slack-jawed expression.

"MacKenzie, Sweetheart. Can you do me a big favour and go tell Grandma that breakfast is ready?" He told his granddaughter, ruffling her thick mop of blonde hair in the process. MacKenzie gave her grandfather a toothy smile that made her nose wrinkle.

"Okay," she said, sprinting between his legs and down the hall. He waited until he could hear her footsteps on the stairs before he turned back to Coulson.

The man looked down right shell-shocked and was making no effort to hide it. His fingers gripped the arm of the couch, knuckles blenched-bone white as he gasped noisily and tried to push himself into a standing position. Bad idea, his knees quivered like a newborn calf and he would have fallen if Grant hadn't caught him.

"Whoa, okay. Let's not do that just yet." Grant mumbled into his shoulder as he shifted him back into a sitting position on the couch. He reached to activate the recliner to further discourage the man from trying to stand up again.

The colour had started to drain from Coulson's bruised face and he was panting.

"Sir?" He asked gently, easing himself down to perch on the edge of the coffee table. His glasses slid down the bridge of his nose as he tilted his head, watching Coulson carefully for a response.

"I know this seems strange," he hedged when it was clear that the other man wasn't interested in talking.

Coulson's gaze fixated on him for only a moment before his shut his eyes, opening them again a second later. He grunted in confusion when the image did not resolve itself.

"Yer, not seeing things." Grant assured, noticing his wary look. Shaking his head one more time he bit his lip and let out the breath he had been holding. "There's been an incident involving an 0-8-4 that exploded at a S.H.I.E.L.D. Facility."

Coulson stiffened, but otherwise said nothing.

"No one is one hundred percent sure what exactly happened, we think it caused some kind of temporal disruption event." Grant swallowed hard, waiting for a reaction, but the shocked look he received forced him to elaborate.

He tried a different approach. "The date is January 2nd, 2040. You, Skye, and my past self were transported here by unknown means."

The truncated gasp that left Coulson's mouth was one of pure confusion. It was somewhat unnerving considering the man's typically unflappable disposition.

"Where's Skye?" He growled after a moment.

"She's safe." Grant hesitated.

Coulson glared at him.

"Alright," he conceded. "Believe it or not this is uncharted territory for us as well. Skye's at the Apex. It's like a newer version of The Hub. She was exposed to a Class 3a restricted substance known as Terrigen Mist in Puerto Rico. She's still unconscious, but she's in good hands."

He didn't dare explain that after the incident in that lab Skye had been placed under heavy sedation until they could figure out what to do with her. He couldn't afford to have her lose control and accidentally take down half of Seattle with one of her earthquakes.

Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to process what he was being told. He ended up closing his eyes and taking another long deep breath.

"I know it's a lot to take in, but my best people are working on it. We'll set things right." Grant inwardly cringed. Skye loved to tease him about his awful people skills.

"No," Coulson snarled. "You won't. You lost your right to make any decisions regarding my team when you sold us out to Hydra. We're done here." He twisted and propelled himself forward in a effort to get to his feet. Grant easily blocked him, one hand pinning his arms to his chest while the other pushed him backward with a thud. Phil ran his tongue around parched lips, his eyes darkening with a bitter resentment that seemed to smoulder when it became clear that Grant wasn't interested in letting him go just yet. Instead, he seemed to take up his entire field of view, his chocolate brown eyes meeting Phil's blue ones.

"I get it." He said, his voice low and even. "I messed up bad. You don't trust me and that's fine, but right now I'm not asking for your forgiveness, just your cooperation."

Coulson winced as a fierce wave of nausea ricocheted through him. They stared at each other for a long moment before futility won out and he finally let his head sink back against the leather headrest. Grant gave him a little nod and stood up.

"You've got a pretty nasty concussion, a few bruised ribs, and you've somehow been flung 26 years into the future using alien tech." He explained, producing two tablets and a glass of water from a nearby end table.

"Least I can do is offer you a couple of Advil." He said, by means of a peace offering. Coulson took the pills wordlessly, his breath steaming up the glass as he swallowed.

"It's really 2040?" he asked after a long moment, earning a small smile from Grant.

"Yep, afraid so."

He looked at Grant standing in front of him quite casually in a faded Boston Red Sox t-shirt and dark sweat pants.

He caught sight of something shifting in the distance and whatever he was going to ask died on his lips.

"Skye?" He asked, voice rumbling with surprise.

"Hey AC, How ya holding up?"

Grant looked over his shoulder, following Coulson's gaze to where his wife leaned against the doorframe. His lips quirked into a smile.

Skye grinned over them. "Glad you haven't managed to give poor AC a heart attack yet."

Grant rolled his eyes.

* * *

><p>Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed so far. Hopefully you like it? I'm totally up for suggestions.<p>

**Reviews = Updates :)**


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